The Curse of the Black Spot (TV story)
The Curse of the Black Spot 'is the third episode of the sixth series of ''Doctor Who. It was written by Steve Thompson, directed by Jeremy Webb and featured Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor, Karen Gillan as Amy Pond and Arthur Darvill as Rory Williams. Overview To be added Synopsis The Doctor, Amy and Rory are stranded on a becalmed 17th-century ship with a crew of pirates who are, one by one, being hunted down by a beautiful Siren that comes for all the injured and marked by a black spot on the palms of their hand. With Rory soon injured, becoming a target for the Siren himself and the TARDIS having been snatched away by a mysterious force, the Doctor's only hope is to get the ship to sail again before each and every one of them are destroyed by the song of the transluscent sea demon... Plot The naval ship Fancy, now a pirate ship becalmed in the middle of the sea is returned to by a number of it's crew in a rowboat, returning with the fruits of their labours. On their return, however, they inform the Boatswain that one of their party, McGrath, was injured and now has a black spot on the palm of his hand. They bring him to Captain Henry Avery and he declares McGrath a dead man. A haunting singing starts sounding outside and McGrath tries to flee for his life, only for the Captain and the other crew to hear him scream. They embark on deck to find him gone when they hear a banging from below decks; they open up the brig to discover the Doctor, Amy and Rory. Avery interrogates the travellers in his quarters and struggles to believe that they happened across them stranded at sea, accusing them of being stowaways. In true pirate fashion, they make the Doctor walk the plank while Amy is sent below decks. As the pirates attempt to coax the Doctor into the water, Amy returns dressed in pirate garb and brandishing a cutlass. A swordfight ensues in which Amy manages to injure one of the crew, branding him with a black spot. However, Rory is also injured in the chaos and marked with the black spot as well. Avery declares that the supposed demon of the ocean will now be coming for them both as the same haunting singing begins. Rory and the sailor are both affected by the singing, reducing them completely to gormless babbling. The waters beneath them start glowing and a luminescent blue woman emerges from the light and lands on deck. The crewman reaches for her hand and he dissapates into a cloud of smoke. The creature furiously thrusts Amy backwards when she tries to keep Rory away from it and the Doctor instructs everybody to retreat below decks. Avery tries to force the Doctor to get them away in the TARDIS and the crew decide to leave Rory to the mercy of the Siren, as they name it, when a leech latches into a crewman and bites him, marking him with the black spot too. The Doctor is convinced that they are safe in the hold when the Siren suddenly springs up behind him. While the other crewman is lost to it, everybody retreats back upstairs and decides to barricade themselves in the magazine, somewhere with no water for the Siren to appear through. When they arrive, however, they discover a boy hiding in a barrel of gunpowder, Avery's son Toby. The boy admits he stowed away after his mother died the previous winter and tells him of stories she'd imparted to him about how he was an honorable man, unaware he'd forsworn his previous post for a life of piracy. Avery insists that he can't stay but Toby then shows him that the black spot is also on his hand, a result of his fever. Despite Avery's reluctance, he agrees to accompany the Doctor to fetch the TARDIS and bring it for everybody to escape in; he orders the remaining crewmembers, Mulligan and the Boatswain to remain until he returns. While they get to the TARDIS, the Boatswain and Mulligan prepare to depart, deciding that Avery has gone soft in telling them to watch the boy. Toby orders them to stay put, citing his father's orders to them but they spitefully reveal his pirate's life to him and Toby cuts the Boatswain with a cutlass to keep him from leaving. Amy and Rory, who had come to his senses with his distance from the Siren, convince him not to fire or else blow them all up but Mulligan flees, still safe from the siren. Meanwhile, the Doctor tries to launch the TARDIS, but the engines repeatedly stall and it refuses to take off. Suddenly the ship starts going haywire and the Doctor and Avery are forced to retreat as it disappears in a bolt of green light. On their way back to the magazine, they pass Mulligan who heads for the treasury; he burns his hand on his light source and is taken by the Siren. When they break inside, the Doctor realises that it wasn't water that was allowing the Siren entry, but reflective surfaces. They hurry back to the magazine to keep Toby from accidentally letting it in when the Doctor goes about destroying every reflection on the ship. Avery is apprehensive to get rid of the treasure, in spite of the fact that having it puts those with the black spot in danger, but reluctantly agrees. Later that night, while Amy, Rory and Toby sleep, Avery joins the Doctor on deck and he asks why he went from being a respected Naval officer to a pirate, insisting that there is still time and means of changing his ways if he chooses. Later, Amy finds the Doctor in Avery's cabin when the wind suddenly starts to pick up and a thunderclap sounds, meaning that they are about to set sail. A rainstorm builds up around the ship and everybody works at setting the ship on course; Avery tells Toby to get his compass from his coat but the crown from the treasury falls out of it. While Toby looks at it horrified, the Siren emerges from it's reflection and takes him. The Doctor throws the crown into the sea and the Siren disappears while he berates Avery for holding more value to the treasure he'd stolen than his commission and his own family. Suddenly, the rigging knocks Rory into the water, but the Doctor stops Amy from jumping in after him to keep her from drowning too and he releases the Siren to go in and save him, having suspected that she isn't a mindless predator and that everybody else might be still alive. He gets Amy and Avery to agree to let her take them in order to find them and they prick their hands, surrendering themselves to the Siren. They wake up on a ship on the other side of the reflections of the Fancy, looking around it to find the crew dead and decomposed from a disease. They find the rest of Avery's crew in the ship's medical bay, along with Toby, Rory and the TARDIS. Rory is roused from his sleep and the Siren arrives to settle him again but Avery, thinking he's about to harm Toby, shoots at her and gives away their position. As she advances on every, the Doctor sneezes and the Siren approaches him with a red bolt of energy and he throws his handkerchief to the ground as she disintegrates it. He immediately realise that the Siren was never a killer at all, but a virtual doctor, looking after the sick and injured of humanity while it's been idle after the death of the ship's crew. The Siren refuses Amy to interfere with Rory but she insists that she let him help her husband and presents her ring. The Siren agrees to allow Amy to take responsibility for Rory and she attempts to disconnect him from the machine but he is still in the process of drowning so she is forced to reconnect him; the Doctor acknowledges that the Siren can tend to the sick but doesn't know how to heal them. Rory wakes up and tells them that Amy can save his life if she performs CPR on him and resuscitates him and while Amy is apprehensive to try, for fear of doing it wrong, he voices his faith in her. The Doctor takes Avery off to the side and admits to him that Toby can't leave the ship; his condition of Typhoid fever is treatable but he won't survive for long without the Siren's help, so Avery decides to stay on the ship with Toby where he can be treated and start a new life, voyaging through space with his son and crew. With no other choice, Amy decides to try and save Rory herself. The Doctor helps her bring him into the TARDIS and she performs CPR as instructed; for the first few times, there isn't any response when he suddenly springs back into life. Shortly afterward, the TARDIS leaves and Avery, Toby and the crew of the Fancy take off into the universe. In the TARDIS, Amy and Rory leave for bed while the Doctor and Amy share a brief moment of reflection about things the other doesn't know about. While Rory reminds Amy that she can't tell him what they'd seen for him in 2011, the Doctor performs another full-body scan on Amy and the pregnancy status continues to switch between positive and negative... Cast * The Doctor - Matt Smith * Amy Pond - Karen Gillan * Rory - Arthur Darvill * Henry Avery - Hugh Bonneville * Toby Avery - Oscar Lloyd * The Boatswain - Lee Ross * Mulligan - Michael Begley * De Florres - Tony Lucken * Dancer - Chris Jarman * McGrath - Carl McCrystal * The Siren - Lily Cole Crew To be added References To be added Story Notes To be added Continuity To be added Home video and audio releases To be added External Links * Official ''The Curse of the Black Spot'' page on '''Doctor Who Website